I'm now part of the Mesa family... sorta...

[SimonSez]

So I bought a Mesa Road King 2 head from Mesa's Hollywood outlet store on eBay. It was a good deal so I bit. Anyway, I got the head the other day, plugged it in last night to my Mesa 4x12 cab and I turn it on. I started moving the knobs around and there was no sound. I heard a crackle for a second and then something that sounded like a lightbulb burning out and a burning smell. I switched off the amp right away. Now when I switch the amp on, with "hi-volt" off there is a low humming noise coming from the cab. One of the EL34 tubes in back is only slightly lit up compared to all the other power tubes. I was so looking forward to playing through this amp. You guys think it might be a bad tube or something more serious? I contacted the eBay seller but considering it's Friday and everyone says Mesa is closed I figure I will have to wait through the weekend

 

[siggy14]

Make sure you have the output cable plugged in right, you will notice there is a dummy ground plub that goes in if you are not using two different cabs, also make sure all switches for cab selection are set to the cab1 if you are only using cab 1

 

[SimonSez]

Update! I called Mesa and they told me probably a bad tube. So I bought a pair of EL34s and put them in and the amp works great. I have been playing through it for a couple band practices and it slays! It's amazing how much more I want to play now that I have achieved the tone I was looking for. For Channel 4 in diode rectifier mode, first I tried the power tubes on 4x6L6 and it was close to what I wanted. Then I tried 2x6L6 and 2xEL34 and jackpot! This is it!! I don't know how to explain it best but it sounds like the chug from Metallica's Black Album along with some Dimebag tone and JCM800 tone mixed it. It's just what I wanted. And you know what? The AxeFX Ultra I had before didn't even come close. This amp just reacts differently.

Anyway, the only thing bothering me is the clean tone. The clean channel isn't clean enough for me. When I play live I usually play clean on a couple songs and sometimes the switch between distorted and clean tone is so quick that I can't switch from the bridge to the neck pickup on my guitar (as I'm singing). I can hit the button the floorboard though to switch the amp from dist to clean. So with the bridge pickup (Seymour Duncan JB) and the clean channel 1 on the amp, I still get some slight break-up. I think I have the gain at 9'oclock on channel 1 and the master volume is all the way up, and it's still a big difference in volume between the clean and distorted channels. I have a Crate Blue Voodoo that has an amazing clean tone and that amp would never break up, so is there any way to achieve that here? I would hate to have to use the Blue Voodoo for cleans and have to lug around two amps to gigs.

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Update! I called Mesa and they told me probably a bad tube. So I bought a pair of EL34s and put them in and the amp works great. I have been playing through it for a couple band practices and it slays! It's amazing how much more I want to play now that I have achieved the tone I was looking for. For Channel 4 in diode rectifier mode, first I tried the power tubes on 4x6L6 and it was close to what I wanted. Then I tried 2x6L6 and 2xEL34 and jackpot! This is it!! I don't know how to explain it best but it sounds like the chug from Metallica's Black Album along with some Dimebag tone and JCM800 tone mixed it. It's just what I wanted. And you know what? The AxeFX Ultra I had before didn't even come close. This amp just reacts differently.

Anyway, the only thing bothering me is the clean tone. The clean channel isn't clean enough for me. When I play live I usually play clean on a couple songs and sometimes the switch between distorted and clean tone is so quick that I can't switch from the bridge to the neck pickup on my guitar (as I'm singing). I can hit the button the floorboard though to switch the amp from dist to clean. So with the bridge pickup (Seymour Duncan JB) and the clean channel 1 on the amp, I still get some slight break-up. I think I have the gain at 9'oclock on channel 1 and the master volume is all the way up, and it's still a big difference in volume between the clean and distorted channels. I have a Crate Blue Voodoo that has an amazing clean tone and that amp would never break up, so is there any way to achieve that here? I would hate to have to use the Blue Voodoo for cleans and have to lug around two amps to gigs.

What's the settings you use for your clean channel? Another way would be to redial your distortion channel. Lower its channel volume, then bring up the output control instead...

 

[KiwiJoe]

Update! I called Mesa and they told me probably a bad tube. So I bought a pair of EL34s and put them in and the amp works great. I have been playing through it for a couple band practices and it slays! It's amazing how much more I want to play now that I have achieved the tone I was looking for. For Channel 4 in diode rectifier mode, first I tried the power tubes on 4x6L6 and it was close to what I wanted. Then I tried 2x6L6 and 2xEL34 and jackpot! This is it!! I don't know how to explain it best but it sounds like the chug from Metallica's Black Album along with some Dimebag tone and JCM800 tone mixed it. It's just what I wanted. And you know what? The AxeFX Ultra I had before didn't even come close. This amp just reacts differently.

Anyway, the only thing bothering me is the clean tone. The clean channel isn't clean enough for me. When I play live I usually play clean on a couple songs and sometimes the switch between distorted and clean tone is so quick that I can't switch from the bridge to the neck pickup on my guitar (as I'm singing). I can hit the button the floorboard though to switch the amp from dist to clean. So with the bridge pickup (Seymour Duncan JB) and the clean channel 1 on the amp, I still get some slight break-up. I think I have the gain at 9'oclock on channel 1 and the master volume is all the way up, and it's still a big difference in volume between the clean and distorted channels. I have a Crate Blue Voodoo that has an amazing clean tone and that amp would never break up, so is there any way to achieve that here? I would hate to have to use the Blue Voodoo for cleans and have to lug around two amps to gigs.

Hmmm, maybe try backing off the volume pot on your guitar; not a lot, just maybe like down to 8 or so, just to take some signal strength out of the picture. Another thing that I have found is that the tone controls on the mini are VERY sensitive and have a huge impact on gain. If you push the treble it will clip early; so maybe try backing that off a bit. Same with the gain; maybe back that off from 9 o'clock to 8 and see what happens. The amp is super responsive. Also, I'm assuming that you're on 25 watts to give yourself some extra headroom.

Of course, ultimately, your right hand technique (attack) has a lot to do with it, too. I can comp jazz chords through mine on clean, and I couldn't ask for a better clean sound than what the Mini delivers.